AOL is a Virus!

Ok. I had to take a moment to vent. I just finished setting up a wireless network at my Mom's house, and AOL made the whole process an absolute nightmare. Basically my Mom is in the same boat as many people these days. She's been using AOL for years, and now she's finally upgrading to broadband, but she's comfortable with AOL, and she doesn't want to change her email address. Needless to say, migrating to a new service is a scary thing for her.

So yeah, that's a problem, but as I struggled to install the router, I was amazed to find how terrifying the AOL software has become. In the old days I recommended AOL to my parents because it was user-friendly, and easy for non-techie people to use. That is no longer the case. The new version is a monster, in installs all sorts of crap on your machine -- anti-spyware, virus scanner, toolbar, and who knows what else -- that AOL users are not going to use. Both my Mom and her husband's PCs took about 10 minutes to start up because there were so many extensions running in the background. Launching IE took about 30 seconds. Worst of all, AOL had configured itself to automatically start up every time the machine booted, and every time you tried to run IE! The program is a major resource hog as well, and would often lead to system slowdowns and crashes.

AOL has become a renegade organism run amok. Aware of its own desperate situation, it now tries to cling to every corner of the operating system. It's really sad that the company that helped lead the internet revolution must now resort to making parasitic software that they unleash on their innocent, technically-challenged customers.

I hope soon my mom will be able to get the AOL virus off of her machine, but now I'm worried that it's already plotting its next move. Even if she buys a new computer, I'm afraid it might find a way on there. How long before AOL starts embedding itself into her Word docs?